ChatGPT has become my favorite career database. I use it regularly with my career coaching clients to discover career ideas that fit their gifts and passions. In this artcile, I’ll explain how to use ChatGPT (and smart Google searches) to generate new career ideas that fit your gifts and passions.
Your gifts and passions are the core drivers we use to discover careers that fit you. If aren’t clear about what you’re good at and what you’re passionate about then I recommend using the activities in these articles to discover your gifts and passions:
Step 1: Tap into your vision
The more clearly you can describe the type of work you are interested in doing, the more accurately ChatGPT can generate relevant career ideas, job titles, and roles.
A good old fashioned, low tech free write is my favorite coaching activity for envisioning the type of work that you want to do.
Guidelines
- Write for a minimum of 10 minutes.
- You must give yourself permission to dream. Think big. Think creatively. You will not be tied to anything you write. These are just ideas. Don’t worry about how much money you’ll make, if your ideas constitute a viable career, if you have the skills and experience to succeed in it, if you can get a job, etc. You can assess all that stuff later in the process of evaluating career options. This is just an exploratory exercise but you’ll f*ck it up if you think too practically now because all of your ideas will be limited by what you can easily accomplish, which prematurely limits you from finding something that genuinely inspires you and uses your full potential.
- You might think in terms of job titles (which is fine) but I want you to also go beyond job titles and think of things like projects, tasks, activities, lifestyle, work environment, business ideas, the type of people you want to work with, the impact you want to have, etc.
Looking for more personalized advice about your career?
A few short questions and we can put you on the right path…
Writing Prompt
Write about anything and everything you can imagine yourself doing that utilize your gifts and passions. Use these questions to inspire your writing:
- What are all the things you can imagine yourself doing that use your gifts and passions?
- What would you do if you knew you would be successful?
- What would you do if money was no object?
Step 2: How to turn ChatGPT in your personalized career database
Once you have some initial ideas about the type of work you want to be doing, you can turn ChatGPT into a career database to generate related professions, career paths, and job titles. Scroll down to learn how.
You can sign up for free and start using it here: https://chat.openai.com/ (you can also use Google’s version, Bard, if you prefer: bard.google.com).
How do you use ChatGPT to find careers that fit you?
Ask it questions and have a conversation just like you would with me or a friend who knows everything about careers. For example, you could type a question like, “What job titles are the best fit for empathy and creativity?” Then you might substitute keywords like “careers” for “job titles” to see if you get slightly different results: “What careers are the best fit for empathy and creativity?”
Using ChatGPT really is like having a conversation. Continue to refine your questions, updating them based on the results you find. This enables you to get increasingly specific results of careers that fit you. It is an iterative process.
The following are some examples of questions you could ask, but know that the sky is the limit. Feel free to get creative!
Prompts:
What [careers] or [professions] or [job titles] are a good fit for empathy and creativity?
If you have a few ideas of general career directions (e.g. marketing) that are interesting to you but you want to get additional related ideas, ask ChatGPT:
What careers are similar to [marketing]?
What are the most in-demand [marketing] careers?
What are the highest paid [marketing] careers?
Have an ongoing conversation to get more and more specific career ideas. For example:
You ask: What are the 20 best careers for someone who is good at problem-solving and passionate about environmental sustainability?
ChatGPT responds with its list of the 20 best careers for someone who is good at problem-solving and passionate about environmental sustainability.
You ask a follow up question to incorporate another important quality that you are looking for in your next career. For example: “Which of those careers are most creative?”
ChatGPT responds by prioritizing the top 10 careers from the original list of 20 based on creativity.
You ask: “Which of those careers are in the highest demand?”
ChatGPT responds with the careers that are highest in demand.
Step 3: How to use Google to generate more career ideas
You can also turn Google into a career database by using the following search phrases (fill in the blanks with keywords specific to your gifts and passions):
- best careers in _____ [writing]
- what careers use _____ [writing]
- highest paid careers involving _____ [writing]
- list of best _____ [writing] careers
- niche careers related to _____ [writing]
- tending career in _____ [writing]
Example searches:
- careers that solve environmental problems
- list of best environmental careers
- careers in business that help people
- list of highest paid creative careers
- what careers involve design and psychology
Google search tips:
- Look for the auto-fill options that Google generates when you are typing into the search bar and consider following those searches
- After doing a search, scroll to the bottom of the first page of Google and click on a few of the “related searches”
If you’re wondering how to choose the right career for you (from all of the options you’ve discovered above), we’d be happy to chat with you about one-on-one career coaching or the Career Pathfinder Group Coaching Program. Both programs guide you through a decision making framework that’s been proven effective a thousand times over. Our coaching process guides you to clarify which career makes the most of your potential and aligns with your lifestyle and values.
